Student Senate Cinema begins on campus

During the week students are busy going to classes, but during the weekend there are no classes to keep students on campus, so Student Life is busy organizing events to keep the students at UW-River Falls on campus and involved with things on campus. Now Student Senate is joining in the effort.

The Senate is putting on a program called Student Senate Cinema. According to Senate President Tony Sumnicht, it is a way to fill “gaps in programming.”

There will be movies shown every Saturday and Sunday in the Kinni Theater in the University Center at 7 p.m. These films are free to all UWRF students.

The Senate has entered a contract with a movie distributer to show the movies. Therefore, students can expect to see a wide variety of movies shown.

“We get movies that are out of the theaters but not yet on DVD, we get some that are older cult classic type movies and then we get also some movies appropriate for the time of year. So like Halloween or Veterans Day,” Sumnicht said.

The first movie was shown on Sept. 20 and 21, was “22 Jump Street.” The movies coming up include “Easy A” and “Pitch Perfect,” on Sept. 27 and 28, and “The Lego Movie” on Oct. 3 and 4.

Student Senate Cinema is also an outreach program for the Senate, according to Sumnicht. They are hoping to interact with students in a way that is not business. A strong push is being made to get freshman involved on campus to retain them as students in the future.

“Already we’ve seen a lot of positive results and positive data from this first year class,” Sumnicht said. “More firstyears are involved this year than in years past, so hopefully their connecting with organizations and getting involved on the weekends with those organizations.”

Student Life has been keeping track of student involvement this year using surveys that students fill out. According to Director of Student Life Paul Shepherd, they have learned a lot from the surveys.

“Most students report being around three weekends per month and so if students are around that much we have to have stuff going on,” Shepherd said. “So, we are pretty exited this year to take it to the next level.”

Letting people know about Student Senate Cinema and all the different events happening is very important. People have to know about an event in order to go to it and be involved, and on top of posters and messages on the televisions in the University Center, Student Life is trying a new way of telling people.

“We are also trying to make better use of word of mouth as well,” Shepherd said. “Really trying to get student organization leaders, Student Senate, people in the residence halls more aware of what is going on so they can help spread the word to their friends.”

According to Shepherd the surveys students took showed that most people who attend things found out because a friend told them.

All of the upcoming events on campus can be found at events.uwrf.edu/MasterCalendar.aspx or under events on the main homepage.